"Sometimes you climb out of bed in the morning and you think, I'm not going to make it, but you laugh inside — remembering all the times you've felt that way" – Charles Bukowski

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Tag: Saddness

I am back. I am back from what has been the most challenging trials of my life so far. My marriage was deteriorating rapidly in 2017 and the toxic lifestyle also affected my performance at work. I would come to work and sit in front of my computer screen and literally produce nothing for the day, it was like I was just waiting for someone to relieve me of my position. With all the insanity going on over the past 4 months I continued to see my counselor, I visited a new doctor and was prescribed different medications. No matter what I did there was no temporary relief, nothing seemed to help and one day I came to the end of my rope. On that day looking at myself in the mirror, I knew of my two options:

Option one: Let go of the rope, forget myself or who I was and everyone around me. Possibly fall into some addiction or habit that would lead to a quicker end. To separate myself from all that I know and simply fade as quickly as possible.

Option two: Say fuck this and start climbing back up. To say fuck everyone in my way who has nothing to offer that is positive and lifting. The challenge of this climb is for only me to complete, I commit to it without any other option but success. To start anew, allowing the sun to rise and cast its warming brilliance on my face one more time.

I am here writing this blog so as you can guess option two was chosen, though option one was more appealing I found that I still had some grit left in me. Not sure how there was any left, it must be engrained within me because I was able to find it and come back from the fray. Since then I have continued to improve for myself, I know that there is nothing that I can do for anyone without fixing myself first. I was tired of being one of the medicated, I no longer knew if it was my depression or the meds that made me feel so damn bad.

I have always accepted the fact that I came from a broken family and had witnessed atrocities that somehow molded me. I accepted that my mother’s side of the family gene pool was riddled with mental disorders, including a suicide here and there. My father’s side was just as troubled so I believed that I was a product of my environment and that I was genetically flawed, something that was impossible to change.

So I accepted who I was and what dispositions I had and knew that the odds were I wouldn’t ever achieve happiness, or truly find my voice.

I said fuck the bridges, burn them there is no option of return. A change occurred, in that moment when I decided to take control and refuse to accept what I felt my past created, what was in my genetic make up. I refused to continue to walk through this life missing out of each minute of opportunity to achieve greatness. I refuse to continue to welcome death earlier than later. I refuse to gently go into that good night.

I am not sure what I will do with this Blog now. I no longer accept this as being a daily battle because I am breaking through the fucking gate and taking the castle each day. Each day I will continue to strive towards goals and accept failures as a they come.

IF you struggle as many others do, start each day with an idea, an idea to work on yourself. The link below will take you to a self help book I highly recommend.

There have been many times I’ve sat alone at a restaurant and observed my surroundings. I would see a father with children , clearly his court allotted time with them so he sits there and makes the best of a dinner after a long day at work.

I left the gym one evening and decided to eat at a pizza place that had a buffet. I watched a mother sit there with 4 children while they bounced around with little to no worries and the mothers face showed the hours of work she’d endured and the lack of time she had to prepare a dinner. She was tired and possible beaten mentally that night, I could see the surrender in her face.

It breaks my heart when I see these lives in whatever form they are in. You know there is a major battle they are fighting within to make it through the day . I want to be able to walk up and comfort in some way but I know I have nothing to offer to someone who’s fighting their own fight.

I now find myself on the brink of the same situation. Children confused, wife not content and all I can do is continue to work and smile as if all is fine.

Will I be that dad sitting there with his children and some other soul watching me maybe wondering about what caused me to be in that situation?

Will my wife be the woman sitting there with two children bouncing around enjoying a pizza dinner while she dwells upon what life has become?

Where do you turn when there is no specific direction? No specific destination or a helping hand to point the way?

The next move is on faith, and that the footing will hold and not give way to something less complete.

Faith has led many down the wrong path so we know that it is a gamble, a hollow word that feels full when you first hear it.

Each wrong turn strips you down until you are bare and no longer have the strength to fight for yourself.

The question you must ask yourself am I able to make the next turn? Is there any grit left in you to pull yourself back up once more, bare you may be and weak you admit to yourself there is no specific direction.

My spouse and I reached another boiling point this past weekend. It was one of those meltdown types where I sit there calm listening as she hollers and threatens. I no longer explode and argue back, i literally cant do it anymore.

As she cries and packs her bags the kids sit and observe all of this mayhem. She hits the door and I do not want to stop her. As she speeds away out of the neighborhood I try and change the subject at hand with my 7 & 8 year old. As the day wears on they ask where is mom, when will she be back? Later in the evening when they ask all I can say is soon but as I lay them down to sleep they ask again and I tell them in the morning.

I lay awake and toss and turn, eventually going to sleep only to wake an hour later sweating under the sheets. I walk out into the living room and sit in the darkness, the quiet surrounds me and I feel worn as if ive been a book that has been read too much, the spine splitting and the pages stained, some missing.

Morning comes and my children ask “where’s mom”? Once again I look at them with reassurance that soon she will be home. This continues throughout the day, eventually the wife comes home looking worn as well.

A day goes by with little talk, an evening after work I climb into bed around 730 and she approaches me to ask what is the plan, or the future of us. I laid there and spilled my thoughts out on to her. I apologized for wasting so many years of her life and that she deserved to be happy. I also apologized for being an unhappy person, and after 10 years of marriage and all of the effort she has put in to making me happy was all in vain. I will always remain unhappy even though there is so much to be happy for.

My suggestion was while she still had youth on her side she should find someone who appreciates her efforts. After the talk, she walked out of the bedroom tears flowed from my eyes, this hasn’t happened in years. I cried for her, for all we’ve done to each other, all the suffering, the needless suffering, time cannot be given back.

My fear is what happens to me when I finally sit alone, after she finally quits, throws in the towel. What will I become? I fear that the dark pit of depression will continue to grow and swallow me whole.

This has been a year (2016) of sluggish movement for me. I started meds and seeing a counselor to try to make myself a better person and to try to fix my marriage but this past weekend is a perfect example that I havent progressed one bit.

My marriage has been such a rocky road that I do not even know if its salvageable. You get so deep into this rut that you no longer can distinguish what is right and wrong. My condition has never helped, i typically turn a cold shoulder to confrontation instead of resolving it. So far in 2017 I watch everything cascading around me, and i know that I am partially to blame but I often wonder how much. I do not know if it is possible for me to be a better person. I feel like it’s not in me, as bad as I would like to be I don’t have the drive.

I want to put my hand on my wifes and look at her in the eye and tell her it is ok to move on without me. That she deserves someone who is more appreciative and has her type of energy. I’ve always been a soloist which doesn’t mix well with sharing time with others. I don’t know if we will be together or not in the next few months. If we are not my biggest fear is the darkness that moves in around you from the corners of the room. When you sit and silence looking out the window at the leafless trees you cant help but compare yourself to them. They are bare and have nothing to show or give.

How many of you out there look at your reflection in the mirror and not recognize the person? Maybe it’s the absence of the image of who you wanted to be. Each day, those subtle changes become more noticeable.

The lines running across your face here and there, bags under your eyes from the lack of sleep. Day after day you see the same person who you do not know, this feeling is fostered day in and day out and yet it rests below a boiling surface.

Eventually the spill over occurs and now you’ve let some of your secrets out to those around you and you are viewed now as someone particularly not healthy to be around. I kept it below the surface for over 20 years and I thought I could continue until my final breath.

The cracks slowly grew, revealing more of what lies beneath and it gets to the point where you become and easy person to read.

At age 30 the fight became too much and I was in fear of spiraling out of control into a state of no return. I still awoke each morning and pushed through each day, they all seemed the same.

Now at 33 I feel no different other than the medications I take help bury some of those feelings, but the scary thing is that they are only suppressed.

I can understand why some take that walk into the sun, its something that I cannot explain in words only those who know depression can relate.

Holidays are supposed to be a time of joy and celebration, but for some people they are anything but.

Depression may occur at any time of the year, but the stress and anxiety during the months of November and December may cause even those who are usually content to experience loneliness and a lack of fulfillment.

How did you feel during the Thanksgiving holiday break? Did you sit at the dinner table with all of your family listening to old stories, hearing laughter and seeing bright smiles on some of their faces ? While you sat and listened and smiled as well to fit in did you wonder about the happiness others felt? What it was like to know that feeling and be completely engulfed in it? I can say that I have always been this way, I have watched emotions on the faces of family and friends and wondered if they to were possibly hiding something like depression under that smile. If they did then they were damn good at covering it up, carrying on conversations and interacting with others seems to be something depressed folks would avoid.

For those of us who will be spending this time alone we all know how dark those days can be. We tend to think too much about things that hurt. Everywhere you turn there are Christmas lights, music, and window displays serving as a reminder that happiness is surrounding us yet we are void of it all too often.

One thing I have found that helps with this situation is getting out of the house, go and do something out of your comfort zone. Throw yourself into nature and see where it leads you.

As Neal Young once said, “don’t let it bring you down, its only castles burning.”